


with your heart, you will hear

by linumlea



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-22
Updated: 2019-12-22
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:48:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21899914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/linumlea/pseuds/linumlea
Summary: Soulmate AU where the mark consists of a random sentence one’s soulmate is going to say at some point in their presence. For some, the bond is discovered nearly instantly - and some don’t identify their soulmates until years into acquaintanceship.But Bokuto’s mark, covered in scars, is impossible to read at all and he doesn’t even know what to listen for.
Relationships: Akaashi Keiji/Bokuto Koutarou
Comments: 18
Kudos: 533
Collections: Haikyuu Secret Santa 2019





	with your heart, you will hear

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SoVeryAverageMe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SoVeryAverageMe/gifts).



> Hi, [SoVeryAverageMe](https://soveryaverageme.tumblr.com/)! Here is my Secret Santa for you! Hope you will like it and Merry Christmas! <3

Bokuto flipped through the pages, his face falling more and more until his expression was that of utter despair. Finally he looked up. “Akaashi-”

“Yes, I’ll read for you,” Akaashi said.

Bokuto’s dorm room was small, with various clothes strewn about every possible flat surfaces and some vertical as well. He must have tried to clean up before Akaashi arrived because the area around the desk and the desk itself were moderately clean, but the discarded magazine lying opened on the bed told the story of a sudden diversion of Bokuto’s attention midway through the cleaning clearly enough.

It had been right after Akaashi started uni that Bokuto sheepishly had asked him if Akaashi could read something for him out loud - he had said that he understood things better if he heard them rather than read them. Akaashi agreed easily enough, and it became a routine, with either Akaashi coming to Bokuto’s dorm room to read to him and study himself, or with Bokuto dropping by Akaashi’s tiny rented room.

“You’re the absolute best, you know that, right?” Bokuto told Akaashi as he handed him the pages and sat back, wriggling deeper into the chair by the desk he was sitting in until he was comfortable, staring at Akaashi with expectation, his arms crossed behind his head.

“You’ve told me that before.” Akaashi straightened the first page. He chose the spot on the bed which got the most light from the ceiling and the bed lamp and folded his legs under himself. He started reading out loud, shifting from time to time as his legs began to numb. Three pages in Bokuto quietly got up and poured him a glass of green tea which Akaashi accepted gratefully. He paused for a moment to sip at it and inadvertently glanced up - as always, his stomach did that peculiar flip because Bokuto was watching him with rapt attention.

Sometimes, when Akaashi spoke or read and Bokuto’s eyes were focused on him, it made Akaashi feel as if whatever Akaashi was saying was the most important thing ever uttered out loud.

He went back to reading, not even really registering what the words he was saying were beyond being able to put emphasis where needed. The text was about mental health benefits of exercise but the intricacies of the points it made escaped him.

After he was done, Bokuto took the papers off his hands with the biggest, most thankful smile he was capable of, as Akaashi came to realize during the years he knew him. Bokuto’s face fell though, when Akaashi started to get up and reach for his things. “Are you busy?” Bokuto asked. “Can we hang out?”

Akaashi slowly let go of the strap of his bag. “What did you want to do?”

“There’s this movie,” Bokuto said, lighting up again. He reached for his laptop and ushered Akaashi back to the bed. “And it’s boring to watch things alone! Unless you don’t want to.”

“It’s fine.”

The movie was not what Akaashi himself would watch in his free time, but Bokuto’s audible and visible enjoyment was enough to keep Akaashi entertained as well. But given all the things he has watched with Bokuto over the years, Akaashi was definitely seeing a pattern. He wondered if it would be okay for him to ask - but then, Bokuto’s filter was nearly non-existent. If Akaashi asked something, he was sure to receive a truthful reply.

“Bokuto-san, you seem to be into romances.”

Bokuto looked at him from the corner of his eye. “What’s wrong with a guy liking that stuff? I’m only human.”

“Nothing wrong,” Akaashi said, an involuntary smile tugging at his lips. “Just noticed it, that’s all.”

Bokuto hesitated. He pulled his knees up to his chest; all Akaashi could see of his face was a part of his profile and it was unusually wistful, as if overcast with a dark cloud. “It’s not the romance itself,” Bokuto said, “that I’m into. The soulmate thing is.”

“Soulmates?” Akaashi repeated, surprised. “Why? Beyond the obvious. Everyone with a mark has an interest in who their soulmate is.”

Bokuto stayed silent long enough that Akaashi started considering changing the subject altogether, but then Bokuto shifted uneasily. “I don’t know my soulmate’s words,” Bokuto said, resting his chin on top of his arms. He was looking into the distance, unseeing. “When I was little I had an accident at home cause I wandered into the garden shed and knocked over a bunch of tools and the entire mark is now covered with scars.”

“Oh.” Akaashi frowned down at his hands folded in his lap. “That’s… unfortunate.”

People didn’t look at each other’s marks until given permission, but he did remember accidentally spotting a long, pale scar unfurling from underneath the bandage that Bokuto, along with everyone else, wore to cover his mark, back when they were in high school.

“You could say that. And I guess I must’ve scared my parents shitless since I came back home covered in blood and completely silent. From shock, you know.” Bokuto laughed and then sombered again, sighing. “I will never know who my soulmate is - unless they tell me first, that is. So I’m counting on that.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “That they won’t be scared to speak up. And that the words won’t be too plain to go unnoticed.”

“Didn’t your parents copy the mark?” Akaashi’s parents kept a copy of his mark among other important documents, alongside their own copies, kept for posterity. 

Bokuto shook his head. “They wanted to but it happened before the mark was fully readable. Just two last words were legible and that’s all they’re able to tell me about it.”

“Two words are something at least.”

“You wouldn’t say that if you knew what they were,” Bokuto said with a grin, but there was a certain undertone of discontentment to his voice that betrayed his true feelings about the affair despite his smile. “They’re way too normal and common to find the soulmate just with them.”

Akaashi winced. That was one of the marks’ disadvantages - the possibility that the random sentence the soulmate will say was going to end up being too banal, too commonplace to identify them with. 

Looking at Bokuto he wouldn’t have been able to say that Bokuto carried that weight all his life, that possibility that he might not be able to recognize his soulmate even when they appear. Looking at him on a day to day basis it seemed as if it didn’t affect him at all.

But the Bokuto Akaashi was looking at now, curled up on the bed, his back hunched, and his voice underlined with a hidden woe, was just succeeding at keeping the sadness and anxiousness at bay.

His hand itched to reach out and at least try to comfort Bokuto, but in the time he hesitated the moment has passed and Bokuto was back to his usual self.

Bokuto was having a good day. Great, even, with the lectures done before noon and the rest of the day’s schedule pleasantly empty except for the evening when he was supposed to meet with Kuroo. The sun was high and bright in the sky and nothing seemed to be able to cast even a shadow of gloom on Bokuto’s immediate world as he walked across the campus back to the dorms.

The day got first a lot better when he saw Akaashi rushing to him across one of the paths and then somewhat worse because Akaashi’s face was as grim as Bokuto has ever seen it.

“Bokuto-san, I need your help,” Akaashi said instead of a hello, clutching at the sleeve of Bokuto’s shirt, with grave seriousness that immediately spun the wheel of the worst misfortunes Bokuto could think of.

“We can bury the body in the woods,” Bokuto said. “There is a place not far from here where I go running, no one is going to look there.”

Akaashi frowned. “What body?”

“Do you  _ not _ have a body that you need buried? You were so serious, saying you need help, that I went straight to the worst stuff.”

“No. No body in need of burying,” Akaashi said slowly. “I do appreciate the fact that you’re willing to help me get away with murder, though.”

“Well, if you ended up in jail that would be terrible. For me, personally. For you too, probably.”

“Probably,” Akaashi agreed with a huff that sounded like he was about to laugh, the somberness at least partially gone. “But it’s not any murder or its consequences that I want to ask you to help me with.” He opened his bag and pulled out a bunch of papers. “I have a presentation due Friday and I was wondering if you could listen to me present and tell me if everything looks and sounds clear enough.”

An opportunity to listen to Akaashi speak continuously for an unspecified amount of time? “Sure!” Bokuto said without hesitation.

“So,” Kuroo said, loudly sipping his milkshake through the straw. In the cafe around the table Kuroo and Bokuto occupied the noise level was high enough, with other students talking and laughing uproariously, that Kuroo’s loud sipping was probably barely audible to anyone but them. “What got you so down now?”

“Akaashi asked me to listen to him while he did a mock presentation,” Bokuto said, his voice coming out muffled as he laid face down on the table. “And at the end I couldn’t even tell what the presentation was about cause his voice is just so nice and looking at him point and move and-”

“We get it, you’re a lovesick fool,” Kuroo said.

Bokuto whined out loud. “I had to make something up as feedback cause he asked for it. I mean, I’m pretty sure his presentation was perfect as it was, but I didn’t wanna disappoint him and just tell him everything was great.”

“What did you tell him?”

“Something about more diagrams. I don’t even remember.” Bokuto rubbed his face into the table but that just made him feel vaguely gross. “I don’t wanna let him down, you know?”

“We know. The whole world knows. It’s a wonder that only Akaashi doesn’t seem to realize.”

“You’re not helpful.”

“And you’re hopeless.” Kuroo slid his already empty glass away. Out of the corner of his eye Bokuto saw Kuroo’s hand inching towards Bokuto’s own still half-full glass and he curled his hand around it protectively. Kuroo made a small noise of indignation. “Why can’t you just tell him?”

“Tell him what?”

“That you can’t live a day without him by your side,” Kuroo said, placing his hand over his heart and looking up into the ceiling, ardent.

“But what if we’re not soulmates?”

Kuroo’s hand dropped back down. “That’s what you’re worried about? Soulmates?”

“Well, yeah-”

“One,” Kuroo said, lifting his finger categorically, “you don’t know that yet. That you’re not soulmates. Two - what would it matter if you weren’t?”

Bokuto sat up. “Because it would go against the design.”

“What design? Fate? Seriously?” Kuroo shook his head. He reached for Bokuto’s milkshake again and this time Bokuto didn’t stop him. “Soulmates are just suggestions, you know. It’s not final. A lot of soulmate pairs don’t work out, and non-soulmate pairs work just fine. You’re too focused on the fate part to see how you and Akaashi work as people.”

Bokuto shifted in his seat. “And how do we work as people?”

“You tell me,” Kuroo said, finishing Bokuto’s glass in one go.

Bokuto frowned. 

Three days later, after two days of radio silence from Akaashi - and usually he replied to at least every fifth of Bokuto’s texts, which, admittedly, not all were equally important and required a response - Bokuto found himself standing in front of the doors to Akaashi’s tiny rented apartment, full of concern for Akaashi’s well-being.

He pressed the doorbell once. Then again, three minutes later. Finally Akaashi opened up, bleary eyed and squinting something fierce.

“You okay?” Bokuto asked, hesitating in the corridor. “You don’t look all that good.”

“I barely slept yesterday because the guy I paired up with to do a project didn’t do his part,” Akaashi said, leaning against the doorway and rubbing at his eyes. “And today I was so strung up I couldn’t fall asleep again. And now I’m finishing a report.”

“Ah. Bad moment to drop by, then.” Bokuto lifted the bag with food he grabbed from a shop on the way. “You weren’t responding so I was thinking you might be busy. And that you might not be eating properly.”

Akaashi’s face dropped as he looked at the bag. His stomach growled. “I forgot to eat. I haven’t eaten since yesterday, I think.”

Bokuto frowned. “That’s no good. Lend me your kitchen.”

“What are you planning?” Akaashi asked as he pushed the doors open all the way and let Bokuto in.

“Lend me your kitchen and I will make something some real food for you, so you can eat, finish the report and finally go to sleep.”

Akaashi looked sceptical, but he didn’t hover over Bokuto long, instead going back to writing the report while Bokuto bustled in the kitchen, feeling in his element, throwing together the ingredients he brought and the ingredients Akaashi thankfully had.

When he was done, he laid the food on the low table in the middle of Akaashi’s room. At first Akaashi didn’t seem to realize that the food was ready but then he sniffed and got up from the desk, drawn to the table.

He dropped down on the opposite side to Bokuto and lifted an eyebrow.

“If you’re thinking that it looks better than you thought it would, then please at least don’t say it out loud,” Bokuto said, dramatically raising his hand to stop Akaashi from saying anything. “I don’t want to know how lowly you think of my cooking skills.”

Akaashi huffed. “Thanks for the food.” He gingerly picked up the first bite. His face opened in surprise and something warm, a delight. Then another he picked up another.

Akaashi’s eyes glistened wet. He rubbed at them instantly and ate quicker. “I’m really lucky to have you by my side, Bokuto-san,” he said between the bites.

Bokuto grinned at him and leaned on the table, watching him eat until he was done.

“I feel better,” Akaashi admitted, leaning back on his hands. His colors were starting to come back and he no longer was so sickly pale. “I felt like I was thinking through a fog and that’s gone too now.”

“That’s good,” Bokuto said. “Ready to go back to work?”

“Somewhat,” Akaashi said, rising. 

He reached for the dishes to help Bokuto clean up, but Bokuto didn’t let him, instead pointing him to the desk. “I’ll clean up - you finish and then go to sleep.”

Akaashi hesitated. “Will you stay? Until I’m done?”

“You want me to?”

“Yes.”

Bokuto brightened. “Yeah!”

But four hours later Akaashi still wasn’t done. Sitting at the desk, Akaashi was nodding off, shifting all the time, visibly uncomfortable. When Bokuto left the room for a moment to make Akaashi some tea and came back barely a few minutes later, Akaashi was already asleep, lying with his arms crossed on the desk and his head on top of them, his breathing steady and the tension gone from the lines around his eyes.

Bokuto looked at the tea he was holding, then around. He didn’t know if he should wake Akaashi up or just go home.

He gently shook Akaashi’s shoulder to which Akaashi sprang up so suddenly he nearly fell out of the chair. “I’m awake,” Akaashi slurred. He rubbed at his already red and shadowed eyes.

“Did you finish?”

Akaashi looked down, his face contorting in anguish. “No,” he said, sounding like he was about to cry. “I still have the summary to write.”

“You’re in no state to work on this now,” Bokuto told him. He tugged at Akaashi’s arm until Akaashi got up, swaying on his feet. “I’m gonna set the alarm for you early, so you should be able to finish it in the morning.”

“But- What if I don’t wake up or there is too much left to do-?”

“It’s not the end of the world,” Bokuto said, gently pushing Akaashi towards the bed. Akaashi forewent sitting down and just lied down, all curled up. “It’s just one paper. You will make up for it if you need to.”

“Thanks, Bokuto-san,” Akaashi mumbled. His eyes closed and within a few seconds he was asleep, his breathing steadying.

Bokuto’s heart throbbed. He knew the combination to Akaashi’s phone and just like he said he would he set the alarm for Akaashi an hour earlier than what seemed to be Akaashi’s usual. He sighed, satisfied with himself, and turned to leave - only to remember that he had no way of closing the doors to the apartment after himself. He was sure that Akaashi kept spare keys somewhere in the kitchen, though, so if he just borrowed those and gave them back to Akaashi the next time they see each other it should be fine.

Before he left he threw a spare blanket over Akaashi’s sleeping form. Akaashi curled up tighter, burying his face into the pillow, and Bokuto smiled down at him.

The next day, Akaashi woke earlier, startled awake by the early alarm, to ready-to-eat breakfast waiting for him on the desk, next to the laptop. His energy at least partially restored, he finished the report just in time to send it.

Later in the afternoon, after Akaashi was done with lectures, his phone rang just as he was sitting down to eat the leftovers from Bokuto’s cooking the previous day which Bokuto left neatly packed in the fridge and at which sight Akaashi’s heart did a peculiar, light flip.

“Did you finish the report in time?” Bokuto asked in lieu of a hello.

“Yes.”

“Did you see the leftovers?”

“I’m eating them now,” Akaashi said. In his mind’s eye he could see Bokuto’s delight at his words.

“Good! Hey, Akaashi, can I come over today? Or tomorrow? I have to read this thing but I don’t understand a word no matter how many times I reread it.”

“Sure,” Akaashi said. He looked down at the food. “But only if you cook me something again.”

“Wow. I mean, yeah, I’ll cook! Do you like it?”

“I do. I really do like it,” Akaashi said, smiling to himself. At the other end of the line Bokuto laughed out loud, clearly proud. “Today is fine.”

It was already night when Bokuto came in, carrying bags of groceries and barely stopping to take off his shoes before he was in the kitchen, in full flurry of movement. He rejected all of Akaashi’s attempts at offering him help, insisting that he was going to do everything by himself.

The dinner was, just as previously, delicious. And just as previously, Bokuto stacked a bunch of plastic containers into Akaashi’s fridge - which container, Akaashi was sure, were going to feed him to a while.

It did have the drawback of fewer excuses to have Bokuto over again, but not having to cook for himself sweetened the deal somewhat. And both Akaashi and Bokuto were good at finding reasons to spend time together.

Back in Akaashi’s room Bokuto sat on the bed and pulled out the papers, handing them to Akaashi, his expression hopeful. Akaashi hesitated, wondering where he would be most comfortable sitting. Finally he sat at the table, just in front of Bokuto.

He leaned back until his back was pressed to Bokuto’s legs, ignored it when Bokuto startled and the drilling feeling of Bokuto staring at Akaashi in astonishment, shuffled the papers, and started reading.

The passage of time was nearly impossible to notice, punctuated only with the flipping of pages and an occasional stop when Akaashi’s mouth ran too dry. Bokuto remained still the whole time - usually, while Akaashi was reading out loud, Bokuto tended to get up to walk the length of the room or fiddled with something, so the lack of motion was peculiar. When Akaashi was done, he leaned forward again, his back suddenly cold when the warmth of Bokuto’s legs disappeared. For a moment Akaashi considered leaning against them again, but then he just put the document down on the table and shifted so that he was facing Bokuto again.

“Thanks, Akaashi,” Bokuto said, stretching his arms up to the ceiling and then letting himself fall flat on the bed. From that angle all Akaashi could see was the tip of Bokuto’s nose and wisps of Bokuto’s hair. “You know, you have no idea how helpful this is.  _ With your voice words start to have meaning _ .”

Akaashi whipped his head up. His mouth opened and closed, his voice failing him. He swallowed against his tightened throat. “What did you just say?”

“I said ‘thanks-’”

“No. After that.”

Bokuto lifted himself up on his elbows. “‘Voice-’” he squinted in thought, his offhand comment difficult for him to recall. “‘With your voice-’”

He wasn’t mistaken, was he? Bokuto really did say just that? Akaashi sprang up to his feet. His hands trembling, he struggled to unzip his hoodie and lift his shirt.

When Akaashi lifted his shirt and started to pull off the bandage covering his left side, Bokuto did what he has been taught to do his entire life - he shielded his eyes and looked away.

_ You can’t look and you can’t ask, Koutarou, _ his parents used to say.  _ No matter how curious you are, you mustn’t ask about anyone’s soulmate’s words. It’s rude. _

“Akaashi, what are you doing?” Bokuto asked, exasperated. “You know it’s not-”

“It’s okay,” Akaashi said. “In this instance I think you  _ should _ look.”

Bokuto’s heart thundered against his chest. He peeked between his fingers, just enough to see Akaashi’s solemn face and glittering eyes. He hesitated and let his hands drop.

Akaashi turned and, as if magnetised, Bokuto’s gaze drifted down.

The words were starkly black on the pearly white of the rectangle of Akaashi’s skin that never saw the sun.

“But that’s-” Bokuto mindlessly reached out and with his fingertips traced one of the words.

Akaashi startled but didn’t flinch away. “That’s what you just said, yes.”

The thought could not anchor itself in Bokuto’s mind. He kept repeating it and replaying it until it did, and a second later he was suddenly on his feet, with an armful of Akaashi pressed to his chest, spinning in place.

He realized he was laughing out loud and couldn’t stop, but then Akaashi’s face started to turn green and Bokuto put him down. With a sigh of relief Akaashi unsteadily dropped to sit on the bed and Bokuto crouched on the floor in front of him.

“Remember when I told you that the last two words of my mark were plain?” Bokuto asked.

Akaashi nodded slowly. “I remember.”

“Well,” Bokuto said. “Now I know why you calling me ‘Bokuto-san’ felt different than hearing it from anyone else.”

Akaashi blinked in surprise and then, like a rising sun, the warmest smile that Bokuto has ever seen lit up Akaashi’s face, gently washing over his features.

“Am I the luckiest guy in the world or what?” Bokuto muttered to himself, laying his head on top of Akaashi’s knees, unable to look at Akaashi’s radiant expression for too long, in fear that he himself might burst apart with joy that he could not contain.


End file.
